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Kamala Harris insists she doesn't regret saying Biden, 81, was fit to serve in 'vague' and 'boring' CNN interview
Kamala Harris defended President Joe Biden's fitness to serve in her first interview as the Democratic presidential nominee and took a pass when it came to commenting on her Republican rival Donald Trump.
Harris sat down with CNN's Dana Bash in what the network described as a 'wide-ranging interview.' While many topics were covered, Harris stuck to her talking points and, at times, appeared nervous and hesitant in her responses.
She did grow animated in one area, when she defended Biden's ability to do the job and talked about that day he called her to say he was dropping out of the race. Biden, 81, was pressured out of the race by Democrats, who were worried he'd lose to Trump after his disastrous debate performance where he struggled for words and stared into space.
'I have served with President Biden for almost four years,' Harris said in defense of the president. 'He truly cares so deeply about the American people. He is so smart and loyal to the American people.'
'I have spent hours upon hours with him being in the Oval Office or the Situation Room - he has the intelligence, the commitment, and the judgment and disposition that I think the American people rightly deserve in their president,' she added.
'By contrast, the former president has none of that and so one, I am so proud to have served as vice president to Joe Biden and I'm so proud to be running with Tim Walz for president United States.'
Harris, in her nearly hour-long interview, had no major mistakes.
And Democrats defended her on that point, saying she had followed the main rule of interviews: first do no harm.
Trump summed it up in one word: 'Boring,' he wrote on his Truth Social Account.
Kamala Harris gave her first interview as the Democratic nominee to CNN's Dana Bash
But she struggled to explain what she would do on Day One in office. And, as she pushed some of her campaign policy positions, she was hit with questions on why she had implemented any of those ideas as vice president.
She said she wanted to bring a 'new way forward, and turn the page on the last decade.' But then had to explain what she meant by that given her role as a leader in this country over the past three years.
Harris did reveal what happened on July 21st, when Biden called her to say he was stepping down as the Democratic nominee. He called her that morning, ahead of his public statement.
'It was it was a Sunday, so I'll give you a little too much information,' Harris said.
She noted she had her family staying with her at the Naval Observatory in Washington D.C. She had finished making eggs and bacon for her grandnieces to have for breakfast.
'We had sit down to do a puzzle and the phone rang and it was Joe Biden. And he told me what he had decided to do and I asked him, are you sure and he said yes. And that's how I learned about it,' she said.
When pressed if she had asked him to endorse her on that call, she didn't give a direct answer.
'He was very clear that he was going to support me,' she said.
And when pressed again, Harris said: 'My first thought was not about me to be honest with you. My first thought was about him. To be honest I think history is going to show a number of things about Joe Biden's presidency. I think history is going to show that in so many ways it was transformative.'
She also seemed uncomfortable when talking about her trailblazing status as a women of color running for president.
'I am running because I believe I am the best person to do the job, for all Americans, regardless of race and gender,' she said.
One thing Harris declined to talk about in her interview was Donald Trump.
CNN's Dana Bash asked Harris about Trump's questioning of her racial identity when he suggested she 'happened to turn Black.'
'Same old, tired playbook,' Harris replied. 'Next question, please.'
'That's it,' Bash said.
And that was it.
Kamala Harris defended Joe Biden - the two hug above at an event in Maryland in early August
Republicans criticized the optics of the interview - where Tim Walz, Kamala Harris and Dana Bash were seated (left to right)
It was revealed in the interview that Harris and Trump have never met face to face, meaning the ABC debate on September 10th will be their first meeting.
Bash noted that CNN has also invited Trump and J.D. Vance to sit for an interview with the network.
Trump seemed to enjoy the interview.
'I look so forward to Debating Comrade Comrade Kamala Harris and exposing her for the fraud she is. Harris has changed every one of her long held positions, on everything. America will never allow an Election WEAPONIZING MARXIST TO BE PRESIDENT OF THE U.S.,' he wrote on his Truth Social account.
Before the interview aired, Trump held a town hall in Wisconsin where he addressed the upcoming CNN sitdown.
'She's going to be on later on tonight with taped. It was a tape. We're doing it live. Why are we doing it live?,' he noted.
Republicans have raised questions about Harris' ability to think on her feet and handle an in-depth grilling. They were quick to pounce on the interview, saying her answers were too vague and she was not presidential.
'Kamala Harris was asked a specific question about what she would do on Day 1 if elected as POTUS. Her answer was so vague that it was essentially worthless. Not a good start,' wrote GOP pollster Frank Luntz on X.
Jason Miller, a top adviser to Trump, suggested she back out of the upcoming presidential debate on ABC News.
'Kamala Harris has to be thinking about backing out of the ABC debate after this. These are horrific answers,' he wrote on X.
Many pointed to the optics of the sit down. Harris was hidden behind a table, while Walz and Bash were on either side of her. Harris appeared to be seated on a lower seat that Walz – although that could have been the camera angle.
Harris is shorter than her running mate.
Democrats defended her interview, saying at least she didn't mess up.
'I think she did what she needed to do. What she needs to do was be the same person that people have seen on the stage for the last month,' said David Axelrod on CNN after the interview aired. Axelrod helped run Barack Obama's two presidential races.
'I think on the whole this was a good night. I don't think she moved the ball that much forward, but she's certainly didn't fall back,' he added.
Kamala Harris was on a two-day bus tour of Georgia
Kamala Harris stopped to thank campaign volunteers in Georgia
One area where Harris struggled was to discuss what she would do on her first days in office and how she would help fix the economy.
The economy is her weak point and the area where Americans give her and Biden their lowest approval rating.
Harris said the first things she would do as president would be 'to support and strengthen the middle class.' She listed a series of thing she wanted to do in her first days in office: bring down the costs of goods, invest in small businesses, extend the child tax credit and make housing affordable.
'People are ready for a new way forward,' said Harris, who has been the country's vice president for four years.
She defended her and Biden's work on the economy, arguing the COVID pandemic and Trump left them in a tough spot.
'When Joe Biden and I came in office during the height of a pandemic. We saw over 10 million jobs were lost people,' she said. 'Hundreds people that day were dying because of COVID, the economy had crashed in large part. All mismanagement by Donald Trump of that crisis. When we came in, our highest priority was to do what we could to rescue America.'
But when asked why she hadn't implemented any of the policy ideas she was pushing as part of her campaign when she was vice president, Harris, again, returned to the pandemic: 'We had to recover as an economy and we have done that. I'm very proud of the work that we have done that has brought inflation down to less than 3%.'
She went on to point out that the Biden administration had lowed the cost of insulin, created over 800,000 new manufacturing jobs, renewed the child tax credit, and improved the supply chain.
She also claimed her values 'have not changed' despite several policy positions she has shifted since her time in the Senate until present day.
'I think the most important and most significant aspect of my policy perspective and decisions is my values have not changed,' she said.
Tim Walz and Kamala Harris sat down with CNN's Dana Bash in Savannah, Georgia
Some of her stances, particularly on environmental issues, have switched from the progressive end of the Democratic Party to a more central position. She also has pushed back on claims she was in charge of the border.
Harris has railed against Donald Trump's border wall but also vowed, as president, to sign a bipartisan border security bill that includes $650 million for building and reinforcing miles of new border wall.
She defended her work on immigration issues.
President Biden put her in charge of addressing the root causes of migration across the Southern border. Republicans have tried to dub her the 'border czar.'
Harris said her work on root causes has reduced the country's immigration numbers.
'The first of all the root causes work that I did as vice president that I was asked to do by the president has actually resulted in a number of benefits, including historic investments by American businesses in that region and the number of immigrants coming from that region has actually reduced.'
'My value around what we need to do to secure our border. That value has not changed. I spent two terms as the Attorney General of California prosecuting transnational criminal organization violations of American laws regarding the passage illegal passage of guns, drugs and human beings across our border,' she noted.
Border crossings have reached record low levels because the Biden administration enacted a measure from the bipartisan Senate bill that allowing border officials to turn back migrants quickly when crossings exceed a certain level. Biden used presidential proclamation to get it enacted.
Additionally, Harris originally supported a ban on fracking but now says she would not implement one as president.
'It changed in that campaign in 2020,' she said of her position.
'I made very clear where I stand. We are in 2024 and I've not changed that position nor will I going forward.'
'You mentioned the Green New Deal. I have always believed, and I have worked on it, that the climate crisis is real, that it is an urgent matter to which we should apply metrics that include holding ourselves to deadlines around time,' Harris added.
And, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, at the hands of a Minneapolis Police officer in 2020, Harris praised then-Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti for shifting $150 million from the LAPD budget into separate programs designed to create jobs and expand health access — particularly in minority communities.
Now, as she runs for president, her campaign is downplaying her previous support for cutting law enforcement budgets, or, as Republicans call it 'defunding the police.'
CNN's Dana Bash described the interview as 'wide ranging.'
'Nothing was off the table,' Bash said.
Bash began the interview with a video montage that included Bash speaking to Harris on Air Force Two and following them at homey stops around the state of Georgia, talking to voters and visiting local stores.
Harris has been in public service for decades and her constituents have shifted from the liberal city of San Francisco to a more national audience.
She started as a San Francisco district attorney, became California attorney general, then U.S. senator, ran for president in 2020 and became vice president under President Joe Biden.
It took 37 days since she launched her campaign for a sit-down interview to take place. It happened at Kim's Cafe, a local Black-owned restaurant in Savannah, Georgia.
Harris is in the midst of a campaign bus tour of the state.
She was joined in ther interview by her running mate Tim Walz. Republicans criticized the inclusion of her running mate, saying it showed she wasn't capable of being grilled solo.
Harris' campaign pushed back, noting the long tradition of presidential candidates and their running mates conducting joint interviews.
Republicans also have criticized her for waiting so long to conduct an interview and for her changing policy positions.
Kamala Harris listens during a stop at Dottie's Market in Savannah, Ga., as part of her bus tour
In the interview, Kamala Harris responded to Donald Trump questioning her black heritage, which he did above in an interview with the National Association of Black Journalists
Harris became the nominee after President Joe Biden exited the race in late July following a terrible debate performance with Donald Trump that led to questions about his ability to do the job.
Harris has made great strides in catching up to Trump in polling compared to how Biden was doing.
The two are splitting the swing states evenly in the latest polling.
Of the seven battleground states, Trump takes Arizona, North Carolina and Wisconsin, Harris takes Georgia, Michigan and Nevada and the frontrunners tie in Pennsylvania.
There are 93 Electoral College votes up for grabs between the seven competitive states, but the results of a new Emerson College Polling/The Hill poll released on Thursday reveal the two are in a dead tie.
Thursday marks 68 days until the election.